Module 6: ICT & infrastructures

In the first web lecture of this section, we will focus on the prominence of ICT for the performance of infrastructures, the typical challenges faced when designing ICT for information exchange, and the need for guidance of ICT developments by information architectures. In particular, we will focus on interoperability, referring to the ability of disparate and spaghetti-like systems (with all their own path dependencies) to work together.

In the second weblecture, you will learn some of the basic elements of information or information technology (IT) architectures which can help you to get grip on the IT developments.  IT-architecture is the art and science of structuring and organizing information and systems.  We cannot ‘engineer’ the situation as it is simply too complex. There are many players having limited authority, different requirements, a variety of systems and so on. Instead of engineering we have to ‘architect’. ‘Architecting’ focuses on ill-structured problems and on the need to create a shared view on what the future landscape should look like.